By Sam Sooppersaud
On the evening of Sunday, October 16, 2011, a teleconference was held by a group of impassioned USA cricket stakeholders, including several elected cricket officials, to address the problems encountered with the governance of the leading cricket body in the United States.
The idea of a teleconference was initiated by Susheel Kumar and Hemant Buch, two gentlemen among many, who are working feverishly to bring about changes in the way the USACA Board and its president are handling the affairs of the organization. More and more decisions are coming from that body that is inconsistent with the Constitution of the organization. Moreover, the stakeholders are disgusted that president Gladstone Dainty is making decisions unilaterally, decisions that seriously affect the relationship among members of the board and the cricket stakeholders.

On Saturday, October 22, 2011, there is a planned face to face meeting of the USACA Board – the first since 2010 – and it is expected that a majority members of the Board, if not all, plan to attend. It is still left to be seen, whether all will be allowed their constitutional right to sit in at the meeting. In the last face-to-face meeting the West Coast Region representative was denied the right to fully participate in the meeting.

As was pointed out at the outset of the teleconference, the purpose of the “get together” was not to throw stones at anyone. It would be a positive conference, with no one seeking vengeance over anyone. With this in mind the conference began. The main reason for the conference was to ascertain how the stakeholders feel concerning the present governance of USACA, and to elicit information that will help the leaders of the teleconference to draft a proposal to be endorsed by the league presidents, to request what they want to see done by the Board. The proposal is expected to be submitted to the meeting this Saturday.

Among the matters touched and discussed were the Compliance Review process, information on the USACA website that is incomplete and incorrect, the disunity among the Board members, the unilateral manner in which the president is making important decisions, the suspension of Secretary Aaron, the non-recognition of Tony Gilkes as the Representative of the North East region, the refusal of the president to recognize Golam Sayeed as an elected Board member, the refusal of Mr. Dainty to release the results of the Atlantic Region elections, and several other problems confronting the development of cricket in this country. One president even made it known that he is calling on his fellow presidents to pass a no-confidence motion on president Dainty’s governance of USACA.

There were lengthy and impassioned discussions on all the topics raised by the various participants. No one sought the making and passing of motions. It was a time to make the feelings of the participants known, which would help to draft a paper to be submitted to the Board meeting letting them know how the cricket stakeholders feel about what’s going on, and what they would like see done. At the urging of the participants, the three “marked” Board members stated that they intend to attend the board meeting.

Basically, it was agreed that the following matters would be listed on the draft to be submitted to the Board meeting: that Secretary Aaron’s “suspension” be nullified and he is reinstated, that Dainty authorize the release of the results of the Atlantic Region elections, that board members, John Aaron and Tony Giles (NER) be admitted to the meeting, and newly elected representative Golam Sayeed be recognized and also allowed to sit in at the meeting.

The assessment of USACA by one league president painted a bleak picture of our top cricket body. This is what he had to say: USACA is a closed-door society, an Old Boys’ Club, it has no credibility, and it is getting worse. He continued by saying that the league presidents are doing all the work, and should take responsibilities and make changes that will benefits cricket. “We must put people who would represent us”, he concluded.

The teleconference participants agreed that there must be general elections by November 30th, as dictated by the USACA Constitution. Further there was overwhelming support for the Compliance Review process, the idea being that only eligible leagues would be allowed to vote in the general elections.

Personally, I feel it was a constructive conference, because it touched on the salient problems affecting our cricket, the problems that must be fixed immediately if cricket is to be moved to a higher level.

Readers should note that I am reporting, to the best of my knowledge, what took place in the teleconference. I do not represent the views of any website, neither do I speak on behalf of any owners of any websites.

The views expressed here are those of the contributor, and do not necessarily reflect those of www.newyorkcricket.com

7 Comments

Mr. Rana organized a T/20 Tournament comprised of 12 teams. It was based on a knock-out format. I am sure that teams from all the NYCR leagues got a chance to enter a team in this competition. The tournament was held both on Saturdays and Sundays.

Sam S, you may want to post a copy of the USACA’s regulatory requirements to enable others to understand who is compliant and who is not — and why?
By the way, I thought New York comprised of more than 6 leagues…. PSAL, Masters, New York, Bangladesh, New York Softball, West Indian Softball… and there are more… tape ball etc.
So please explain your concerns about who is compliant?

In the NYCR there are at least 6 leagues. 5 of these league had cricket (tournament)up to last Sunday, October 16th. One league had an abbreviated T20 Tournament in which only a handful of it clubs participated. Take a guess which league it was!

To comment on Sam Joh’s comments: Sam, Sam,Sam, my friend, you have missed the boat! To begin with, Mr. Dainty does not have the authority under the USACA Constitution to suspend ANYONE elected to the Board, or for that matter elected to the Regional Administration. A motion for REMOVAL must be voted by a 2/3 majority of the league presidents. And mind you, this is just the motion….

As one who once worked in corporate America in decision making capacities, I am fully ware of the responsibilities and pressures that are entailed. But, corporate managers cannot, blatantly violate the corporate rules in order to alleviate their frustrations because they are unable to cope with the pressure of ther jobs.

To put it is plain English: Mr. Dainty has to stay within the dictates of the USACA Constitution in his decision making, even when he is facing a mountain of job related problems.

Yes, I, as well as all cricket fans would welcome T20 Cricket in 2012. But it seems that a few are ecstatic for its advent because of other reasons. Into which group do you fall?

Those of us that are employed in managerial positions in corporate America understand the issues Dainty are confronted with. We must applaud Dainty for suspending Aaron. Dainty has certainly demonstrated strong leadership qualities, which is something USACA desperately needs. Somehow, Aaron seems to forget that Dainty is his boss and not the other way around. Good to see that Dainty and company is moving forward without Aaron, Gilkes etc. Time to focus on T20 cricket in 2012.